The invention relates to a conveyor for conveying bulk material, such as waste paper and cardboard, plastic or glass to be recycled, along a transport path.
In conveyors for transporting bulk material generally provisions are made to keep bulk material on the transport deck, such as waste paper and cardboard, plastic or glass to be recycled, from falling over the side of the transport deck.
One known solution to keep material on the transport deck from falling over the side of the transport deck is to provide flexible strips suspended above the transport deck closely inside side edges of the transport deck. A problem of such flexible strips is that the strips wear quickly and that substantial amounts of material pass under the strips and fall over the side of the transport deck causing soiling and wear of the guiding mechanism. Moreover friction between the strips and the transport deck reduce the energy efficiency of the conveyor.
It is also known to provide belt conveyors having a transport deck in the form of a trough. However, this requires special measures to keep the side portions of the belt lifted and, if the sloping angle of the belt changes in the course of the transport path, to allow the lifted side portions of the belt to accommodate to such changes in the sloping angle of the belt.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an effective and durable solution for keeping material from falling over the side of conveyor.
According to the present invention, this object is achieved by providing a conveyor for conveying bulk material including a conveyor loop having a momentarily upper section forming a transport deck extending along a transport path and a momentarily lower return section extending under the transport deck. The conveyor loop includes at least one array of pins transverse to the array and connections extending in longitudinal direction of the array and interconnecting the pins and an array of carrier beams each extending transverse to the array of pins and connections. At least one side barrier extends above and along a side of the transport deck for keeping bulk material from falling over a side edge of the transport deck. The side barrier is formed by an array of side barrier plates, the side barrier plates each being fixedly connected relative to axes of a pair of successive ones of the pins, and leading and trailing end portions of successive ones of the side barrier plates being in at least close proximity of each other for keeping bulk material from passing in-between the end portions.
Because the side barrier is formed by an array of side barrier plates, the side barrier plates each being fixedly connected relative to axes of a pair of the pins, and leading and trailing end portions of successive ones of the side barrier plates are in at least close proximity of each other for keeping bulk material from passing in-between the end portions, bulk material is kept from falling over a side edge of the transport deck.
In operation, the side barrier plates move along with the conveyor loop. Accordingly, friction and wear between, on the one hand, the conveyor loop and material transported thereby and, on the other hand, the barrier are substantially prevented. Because the ends of successive barrier elements facing each other are in at least close proximity, material is restrained from between successive end portions of successive side barrier elements in a simple manner.
Further objects, modes, embodiments and details of the invention appear from the dependent claims and the description in which reference is made to the drawings.